Four more days completed in Year of the Doodle!I wonder if these pages can be mined for psychological content...

It's fun being a part of the Facebook group where others are working on this book -- people will post their images and I'll think, "Oh, that's how I was going to respond to that", so I'll have to look harder and challenge myself more and come up with another response. I like that -- I feel as though I'm exercising my brain muscle!

The prompt for this warm-up page was to "doodle a continuous line without looking at it or picking up your pen", and to do this for about a minute. I added to the blind doodle while lying on my bed listening to YouTube videos, and colored the page while the always-awful "BACHELOR" was on TV. The only way that show isn't a complete waste of time is by making sure you're doing something else &/or if your 86-y-o father is awake enough to make funny/nasty comments about the all the contestants.

Jan. 11th: The prompt on the page was a red organic looking shape that lent itself to having some leaves and whatnot added on. After making this, I was reminded about the wallpaper from my childhood bedroom -- had been having a 1970s wallpaper discussion earlier in the day -- so the paisleys ON A STEECK design is a tribute to that long-ago wallpaper. It was awful, but I wish I still had a swatch.

Jan. 13th: The quote prompt had "imagination" and "world" in it, and the page came with colored circles on it. I'm already in Space Creature Creation head, as that's what I've been doing with the kids in the after school sessions for the past two weeks. Here I opted for creatures for each planet, with a corresponding language that is supposed to = ME! as the human from Earth is saying. Yes, I came up with three new languages for this prompt. (*Sneeze* OVERACHIEVER! *Sneeze*)

COMPLETE DISCLOSURE:i actually did Jan. 15th first on this page (too tired after teaching the aforementioned kidlets). I guess it's the curse of being an illustrator that I had to inflict a story onto my pine tree prompt. The map prompt from Jan. 14th was, frankly, stymying me (TOO MANY OPTIONS! MUST DO THEM ALL! CAN'T DO THEM ALL!), but once I'd locked onto Little Red's story, I could not get "Over the River and Through the Woods" outta my cabeza. That song is a Thanksgiving song, and it ends well. I didn't want this one to end too well.Happily for me, there was a George Washington postage stamp that was a part of the page, so Geo got a makeover/ sex re-assignment as Grandmother.The river here is a piece of paper that plays upon Sashiko sensibilities. The green paper is handmade (not by me) with stitching in it. I guess I cannot stay away from stitching, even when I'm working 2-dimensionally and with paper. NOT THAT I WANT TO -- in fact, I want to explore this so much further this year.

Jan. 16th: One of the ways my brain thinks (besides THEMATICALLY) is by locking in on a shape and going on a field trip with all the things that thing could be. I really like this about my brain -- it shows how elastic and playful it is. It didn't get this way on its own -- I exercise it this way plenty, believe me. So here I was playing on all the things the doodle prompt could be; and that doodle is the item to the right of the lollipop-lickin' kid's arm ( the spiral with the handle). I also had a handle in my Bucket O' Ephemera, so I dug that out, and the combination lock that it originally came with.

Jan. 17th: The prompt was PYRAMID. To continue the Little Red theme, I went with the Illuminati eye and the "All the better to SEE you" eyeball (magazine cut-out). The kids in my class get freaked out/ very excited whenever they see something even vaguely resembling the pyramid eye -- much poking and yelling of "ILLUMINATI!!!" I have yet to question them about their take on this, but being with these kids always affects the way I see the world and the artwork I create. That's just ONE of the reasons I like hanging out with and teaching them.

There's a Year of the Doodle Facebook group full of people who are all working on this book. I always find being in some kind of community helpful for sticking with a project -- especially for one as long-term as this one. It's good for the WOW factor (we post photos of our pages) -- both in terms of what people are creating AND the myriad of responses from the same exact prompts. It's true what "they" say: Variety is the Spice of Life!